Osama Bin Laden Prodigy Shot Dead in Police Raid

Osama Bin Laden Prodigy Shot Dead in Police Raid

Mohammed Merah, the 23-year-old Al-Qaeda Inspired French gunman, who confessed to killing seven people in the city of Toulouse in southwest France, is dead after being shot in the head by a police sniper during a final dramatic shootout with French police which marks the end of a 31-hour standoff with hundreds of French anti-terror police who had surrounded the building where Merah had cordoned himself.

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant told reporters Thursday that Merah had stopped communicating with negotiators around midnight, after giving the hint of possible surrender, resulting to speculations he might have committed suicide.

"But when heavily armed paramilitary police entered the apartment through the door and several windows about 10:30 a.m., Merah burst out of the bathroom, blasting away with several weapons,” Gueant said.  Accordingly, the gunman had fired at police before jumping out of the window where "he was found dead on the ground below."

French prosecutor Francois Molins confirmed Thursday that they had found several videos in Mareh's apartment, apparently of his perpetrating the killings.

Molins told journalists earlier that Merah had claimed responsibility for killing three French paratroopers and three young children as well as their teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

Reportedly, Merah had claimed sympathies for al-Qaeda and to have trained most recently in jihadi camps on at least two previous trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2011.

Posted by James Fried on Friday March 23 2012, 1:15 PM EST. Ref: Google. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0